A Reconstructed Cu₂P₂O₇ Catalyst for Selective CO₂ Electroreduction to Multicarbon Products

Abstract

Abstract The electrochemical CO 2 reduction reaction (CO 2 RR) over Cu‐based catalysts shows great potential for converting CO 2 into multicarbon (C 2+ ) fuels and chemicals. Herein, we introduce an A 2 M 2 O 7 structure into a Cu‐based catalyst through a solid‐state reaction synthesis method. The Cu 2 P 2 O 7 catalyst is electrochemically reduced to metallic Cu with a significant structure evolution from grain aggregates to highly porous structure under CO 2 RR conditions. The reconstructed Cu 2 P 2 O 7 catalyst achieves a Faradaic efficiency of 73.6 % for C 2+ products at an applied current density of 350 mA cm −2 , remarkably higher than the CuO counterparts. The reconstructed Cu 2 P 2 O 7 catalyst has a high electrochemically active surface area, abundant defects, and low‐coordinated sites. In situ Raman spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations reveal that CO adsorption with bridge and atop configurations is largely improved on Cu with defects and low‐coordinated sites, which decreased the energy barrier of the C−C coupling reaction for C 2+ products.